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Lone Star rising

From left: John Cornyn is sticking close to Ted Cruz; Joaquin and Julian Castro are rising Democratic stars. | AP Photos

Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Texas) sounded an even more skeptical note, saying that memories of the last major immigration bill, in 1986, are still fresh for many conservative activists.

“All I can tell you is what I see at home: a lot of lessons learned from ’86,” said Burgess. “That, ‘OK, we’ll go one-time amnesty and after that we’ll really be good.’ But nobody believes it this time, nobody believes it.”

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Thornberry noted that Republican voters back home were even angrier toward Washington than when he first arrived in Washington following the 1994 election and that every incumbent in the state had to be on guard.

“I expect everybody will have a primary challenge because people are so disappointed at the results of the last elections,” said Thornberry. “They’re disappointed they can’t get everything done they want to get done with divided government and they’re looking for an outlet and one outlet is to attack other Republicans.”

But Republicans eyeing Texas’s Hispanic future are emphatic that immigration must be dealt with in short order.

Straus, in an interview last week in his elegant Capitol office here, had a blunt message for his counterparts in Washington: “It is an issue that has lingered far too long and as policymakers in the most important border state in the country, we need, as Texans, the Congress to solve this, take it off the plate.”

And the speaker — who represents San Antonio, home to the Castro twins — added a warning.

“We better watch our agenda very closely and try to appeal to more people,” he said. “Politics is a game of addition. Just because we’ve had success in recent years doesn’t mean we’re guaranteed of success tomorrow.”

Straus, much like Speaker John Boehner, has had to quiet some of his more ideological members who’ve garnered press coverage for pushing issues such as the TSA groping matter and “Sanctuary Cities.”

Straus’s job is safe in part, though, because he enjoys coalition support from a bloc of Democrats and Republicans.

But while that enables him to muzzle conservatives in his caucus, Cornyn, the new GOP whip, has no such luxury.

Democrats snicker that he’s now stuck on “Cruz Control,” following the lead of his junior partner on issues ranging from the confirmation of Secretary of State John Kerry (they comprised two of the three “no” votes) to the re-authorization of the Violence Against Women Act (which garnered 78 “yes” votes).